The first time I saw my mother’s name written on that list, I thought it was a cruel mistake. I was sitting in the pew, head bowed, the candlelight flickering against the stained-glass windows, when Father Joseph began reading aloud the names of the departed we had gathered to remember. The names floated like prayers through the heavy air. Then he said it—“Margaret O’Connor.”
My mother’s name.
I froze. My chest tightened, my hands gripping the wooden pew until the skin on my knuckles blanched. My mother wasn’t dead. She was sitting right beside me.
Gasps rippled across the congregation. My mother lifted her head, her lips parting slightly, her rosary beads dangling between her fingers. She looked just as stunned as I was.
Father Joseph stuttered mid-sentence, clearly realizing something was wrong, but he continued reading, his voice cracking slightly. The whispers grew louder. Some turned to stare at us, others ducked their heads as if they shouldn’t have heard what they did.
By the time the prayers ended, my mother’s face had gone pale. Her hands shook. “Why would they say my name?” she whispered to me, her voice trembling. “Why would my name be on that list?”
I didn’t know. But I intended to find out.
The days leading up to that night had been exhausting. My uncle had died, and our family was expected to show up at every rosary, every wake, every prayer vigil. My mother had insisted on being present for all of it—she said it was “our duty.” She wore black every day, pinned her hair neatly, and carried her rosary everywhere she went.
I thought it was just grief. But I had noticed her eyes darting more often toward the back pews, her attention slipping during prayers. When I asked if she was alright, she brushed me off with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
The night her name was read, I saw that smile vanish.
After the service, I confronted Father Joseph in the vestibule. The incense was still thick in the air, clinging to my throat. He was flustered, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Father,” I said sharply, “why was my mother’s name on the list of the dead?”
He froze. His eyes darted past me toward where my mother lingered near the doorway, her face pale, her hands clutching her rosary.
“It must have been a mistake,” he muttered. “I… I was given the list.”
“By who?” I demanded.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “The list is submitted anonymously. People write down names for us to pray for. Sometimes there are errors.”
But I didn’t believe it was an error. Not with the way his voice cracked. Not with the way my mother looked like she might faint.
On the walk home, the night air bit against my cheeks, and my mother stayed uncharacteristically silent. Usually she would talk about every detail of the service—who was there, what hymn was sung off-key, how long the priest droned on. That night, she said nothing.
Finally, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Mom, what’s going on? Why would someone write your name? Who would do that?”
Her steps slowed. Her face looked ghostly under the streetlights. For the first time in my life, I saw fear in her eyes.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” she whispered.
I stopped walking. “What do you mean?”
Her voice trembled. “Your father had another family.”
The words landed like stones in my chest. “What?”
Her eyes glistened, and her voice cracked. “Years ago. Before you were born. He had a child with another woman. A daughter. She hated me for staying with him. She hated me for raising you while she grew up in the shadows. And she told me one day—she told me she’d make sure I was buried in prayers before I was gone.”
The world tilted. The wrong name on the list wasn’t a mistake. It was a warning.
The next vigil, I couldn’t stop scanning the pews. That’s when I saw her. A woman near the back, around my age, her features hauntingly familiar. My father’s nose. My father’s eyes. She watched us with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
When the service ended, I approached her before my courage could falter. “You’re the one who put her name on the list, aren’t you?”
She didn’t deny it. Her lips curled into a bitter smile. “She stole my father. Now she’ll know what it feels like to be erased.”
“She didn’t steal him,” I snapped, though my voice shook. “He chose to stay.”
Her eyes burned. “He chose lies. And you—you got the life that was supposed to be mine.”
She brushed past me, her perfume sharp and bitter, and left me trembling in the churchyard.
That night, my mother sat across from me at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea she never drank. “I knew this would come back someday,” she said softly. “Secrets always do.”
Her voice was heavy with guilt. And I realized that the weight she’d carried all these years wasn’t just about my father’s betrayal—it was about the daughter left behind, the one who had grown up in silence, anger festering until it spilled over into our lives.
Final Thought
When my mother’s name appeared on that list of the dead, I thought it was a cruel mistake. But it was something else entirely: a wound left open too long, bleeding into the present. That night, I learned the dead aren’t the only ones who haunt us—sometimes the living do, too, carrying grudges that prayers alone can’t heal.
